Another week of midterms has come and gone, leaving behind a wreckage of exhausted students. If you’re a part of the 85% of Americans who drink at least one caffeinated beverage a day, that’s probably what got you through it, but at what cost?

You’ve probably heard before that too much caffeine can be a detriment to your health. Not only that, but did you know that caffeine was actually created by the government to slowly assume mind control, and that’s why you keep getting targeted ads on Instagram? (Don’t look that up to confirm, we don’t want them to know we know.)

Cutting out coffee and energy drinks cold turkey isn’t an option for many of us, as we rely heavily on these drinks to give us energy to do even the smallest tasks. 

There are some alternatives to these sugary concoctions if you’ve been feeling a little over-wired lately. So, pour up a cup of joe, dump it out ceremoniously and try out a few new energizing life-hacks. 

1. Make Like a Plant 

All the internet influencers got together and decided that photosynthesizing is the new RedBull. NASA doesn’t want us to know that people can actually turn sunlight into energy just like plants, because we have that pesky skin getting in the way and there’d be an aloe vera shortage if everyone was laying around outside all the time. Luckily, a low watt light bulb will do the trick as well. 

Photosynthesizing takes a lot of practice and focus, so don’t feel discouraged if it doesn’t work right away. Luckily there are ways to help speed up the process. What is photosynthesis? Plants turning light into glucose, or sugar. While you’re standing under your lightbulb, knock back a few spoonfuls of sugar to help the light beams go down. Be sure to do this right in front of your kitchen window in the middle of the day so all your neighbors can see what a genius you are. 

2. Literally Just Sleep

Look I don’t know what to tell you, if you’re tired, that’s nature telling you pretty blatantly what you need to do.

Coffee, energy drinks, cold showers, light exercise, these are all just facades society wants us to play into to seem more awake than we really are.

I don’t care where you are or if it’s a “socially acceptable” time to take a snooze, you don’t owe it to anyone to explain why you’re sleeping in the middle of a Zoom lecture. You shouldn’t need to justify to your boss why you lie down on the ground halfway through your shift. It’s called self care, look it up. If they try to kick you out of the class or fire you, tell them they just seem like they’re crabby and need to sleep more themselves. I’m sure they’ll take it very well and apologize. 

3. Join My Team 

Hey girly! Been a while. Haven’t seen you since we sat on opposite ends of the room in geometry class eight years ago. Time flies, huh? I was scrolling through your Instagram, and you just look really, really tired…

Anyway, I have something super exciting to show you, it’s this new energy bar called EnergeeBarr. I have it on good authority that all the Kardashians eat them every morning to stay energized all day long. The best part? They don’t have a nutrition label on the back, so you know they’re made out of basically nothing. Super healthy and so yummy! 

Where do they come from? Well my EnergeeBarr mentor gets them from her EnergeeBarr mentor, and I just have to get five trainees to try them out and join the program, and then we all get a free trip to the Bahamas. 

What’s more energizing than that?